State Rep. David Kessler, D-Berks, vice chairman of the House Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee,

introduced Pennsylvania's new "PATH to Organic" farming transitions program.

 

Kessler secured $500,000 in the 2008-09 state budget for the voluntary program. He thanked House Appropriations Committee Chairman Dwight Evans, D-Phila.; and House Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee Chairman Mike Hanna, D-Clinton/Centre; for their support of the program.

 

Kessler has worked extensively on the program with the state Department of Agriculture and several organizations, including PennEnvironment and the Berks County-based Rodale Institute, which has been researching and collecting data concerning organic farming for more than 27 years.

 

"PATH to Organic will make farming more profitable and help the environment. It will be a pilot program providing temporary financial aid, during the transition period, to dairy, beef, vegetable and other crop farmers who want to convert from conventional to organic agriculture," Kessler said. "In the first two to four years, farmers who switch typically see lower yields, but as the soil returns to a more natural state, their yields are the same as before, or better.

 

"Organic food is the fastest-growing sector of the food industry and provides a net return to farmers as much as two times higher than for traditionally raised farm products."

 

Kessler said all Pennsylvanians will share in the environmental benefits and other advantages of organic farming:

• Cleaner water: Organic farming eliminates the use of pesticides and other chemicals. It will reduce the amount of nitrogen entering local drinking water supplies and the entire Chesapeake Bay watershed.
• Saving taxpayer money: Pennsylvania is facing a federal mandate to reduce the amount of nitrogen going into the Chesapeake Bay due to effects such as a 70 percent drop in the number of blue crabs caught now compared to 1990. The nitrogen reduction that organic farming can provide could save Pennsylvania taxpayers millions of dollars.
• Healthier food, healthier people: The Rodale Institute reports that11 important nutrients were on average 25 percent higher in organic foods compared to conventional foods.
• Cleaner air: If every farm in Pennsylvania used organic no-till practices, it would have a clean-air effect equal to taking 2 million to 3 million cars off the roads in terms of reducing emissions of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas pollutant.
• Preserving farmland: This initiative will help more farmers to keep farming.

 

Request-for-proposal documents are expected to be available by March 30 on the state Department of Agriculture's Web site -- http://www.agriculture.state.pa.us.

 

The initiative has two main purposes: first, to provide an incentive for farmers to make the three-year transition to certified organic production practices; and second, to evaluate organic production practices as tools in improving soil health, protecting water quality and sequestering atmospheric carbon on a pilot basis outside of the traditional research environment.

 

The program will be limited to owner-operated farms. Of the $500,000 appropriated, $100,000 will be set aside to provide technical assistance to farmers in transition to organic agriculture. The rest of the funding will be provided to participating farmers.

 

The program will reimburse producers for their transition costs and losses such as a temporary drop in yields, which will allow them to convert thousands of acres from conventional to organic farming. The assistance will be available both to producers who are somewhere in the three-year transition process required by the National Organic Program and to producers who have not yet begun that process.

 

Farmers selected to participate will receive a payment per acre per year for a period of up to four years equal to the amount bid in their proposals, provided that no participant will receive more than $7,500 in a single year or $30,000 total. Participating farmers will be eligible for technical assistance from transition specialists, who may be farmers already certified under the National Organic Program, or qualified experts from nonprofit associations, consultants, university or land grant personnel.

 

Participating farmers will have a periodic assessment of their soil carbon levels, which may assist in the sale of carbon credits to any of several carbon-offset aggregators doing business on the Chicago Climate Exchange.